Letter to the editor: Maine needs Medicaid expansion

1 min read

I’d like to commend Sen. Tom Saviello for his bipartisan efforts on MaineCare/Medicaid expansion.

As good representatives should, he, and Sen. Katz, addressed the opposition’s objections and worked to provide healthcare to about 70,000 Mainers with LD 1487. Amazingly, some previous supporters in the House even changed their vote to sustain the Governor’s veto!

Maine residents, and the medical community, need this expansion to support a healthy workforce and grow our economy. House candidate Ed David has promised to support Senators Saviello and Katz in getting this needed legislation passed next year. It’s more than time to get this done!

Colon E. Durrell
Farmington

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

13 Comments

  1. Better late than never! Elect Mike Michaud, Ed David, Guy Iverson who’ll support the expansion of Medicaid.

    Saviello & Katz were right in their efforts to do so, but LePage was/is the
    obstacle. Replace LePage on Nov. 4.

  2. We as a community need to be very careful what we ask for. Expanding Mainecare/Medicaid comes with a heavy cost – both financially and socially. I personally agree that some level of basic medically service is a right that people should have in our country, but the Medicaid/Mainecare system is a flawed and unstable process that will eventually either collapse due to its inherent innefficiences or succomb to the lack of funding by the federal government/tax system. Our country deserves better and we should be looking and supporting alternatives to Medicare/Mainecare rather than promoting a system that has proven itself to be a failure to everyone involved and has no documented plans to improve itself.

  3. I agree with Concerned. Those who voted to support the veto were not politically venal but doing the best to improve Maine’s economy and quality of life. They did the right thing.

  4. I would be willing to bet that we (as a nation) spend more each day, dropping bombs on people, than it would to cover expanded Medicaid in Maine for a year.
    If we weren’t so keen on killing people, then perhaps they wouldn’t be so keen on trying to get back at us.

  5. The Katz/Saviello bill was very careful in it’s expansion of Medicaid. The bill included a sliding minimum payment scale and a provision that would end the program should the federal government stop payment. The cost of not expanding Medicaid is much heavier for the citizens of Franklin County without health insurance than the status quo. When doctors, Democrats, and (at one point) most Republicans support expansion, the alternative is not a reasonable position.

  6. For Actual news: “Better late than never! Elect Mike Michaud, Ed David, Guy Iverson who’ll support the expansion of Medicaid.”

    How about this from Charles Barkley a former NBA player and quasi Republican. “Poor people have been voting for Democrats for 50 years .. and they are still poor”!

    Some will never understand opportunity versus dependence.. Remember “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him forever” The Feds will eventually drop the subsidies and Maine people will then have to foot the bill for those who have become completely dependent! Basically I concur with what Concerned pointed out.

  7. @ Cisco: “How about this from Charles Barkley a former NBA player and quasi Republican. “Poor people have been voting for Democrats for 50 years .. and they are still poor”!

    Charles Barkley is now your guru? That speaks volumes for your lack of insight.

  8. Actual there you go again with personal attacks, once again proving your commitment to the Saul Alinsky program for Democrats!

  9. Cisco: A sick person who needs medical care is less able to work and feed themselves then a healthy person, no?

    The original idea, behind the “War on Poverty” was indeed, to finance programs that would lift people up. educate them and bring them into the work force. But, like so many other great plans, the funding was cut for it, so that we could carpet bomb South East Asia.

    Think what we could have done, with all the money we have poured into the Vietnam war, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
    Our national debt would be tiny, if at all. And so, all the interest too, would be available.

    We could have had free medical care, and free college education for all. We would be the smartest, healthiest, richest nation on Earth and have colonies on Mar and the Moon.

  10. Here are some facts (numbers are close if not accurate) – Currently for every person on Medicaid in Maine (MaineCare) the Federal Gov. pays @ 64 cents of each dollar and the state pays 36. With the expansion the Fed. Gov. would pay $1 and the state 0 for every who’s income is below the poverty level (that means an individual with less than $973 GROSS income per month or less than $1311 GROSS income for a couple per month).

    The expansion would pay 100% for 3 years, then drop to 95% for a year and then 90% forever on. LePage thought this was a bad deal for Mainer’s. Maybe basic math skills aren’t his forte, but 10 cents is a better deal than 36.

    Here is the big picture: Forster’s Mfg, Bass shoe, Hathaway, the paper mills, Scott Paper……until the 1970/80’s, very few Mainer’s needed help with finances, medical care, prescription……because these major industries provided good wages and benefits so families and towns/cities could flourish – they no longer exist and nothing is being done to bring them back.

    We are now into at least the 2nd generation of no industry, no major emplyers, but the same number of students are graduating in our schools each year – many go on to continue their education, but when they are done where do they go for work? If we want our economy to thrive again, drugs, crime, family violence to decrease then this is the answer – if you don’t then vote for the man who makes his decisions from his own personal objective.

    In my opinion, no one deserves to be treated like they don’t matter because we all deserve to be happy health and prosperous.

  11. “The original idea, behind the “War on Poverty” was indeed, to finance programs that would lift people up. educate them and bring them into the work force. But, like so many other great plans, the funding was cut for it, so that we could carpet bomb South East Asia.” Snowman, have you looked at our nations spending in this “War on Poverty”? The only thing ever cut was the amount of the increase in year over year spending. The “War on Poverty” like most “War on You name the social issue” was lost when the 2nd and 3rd generations remained on poverty. Some not all remain on poverty because of an unwillingness to move, retrain, and fewer just because of sheer laziness. The best way to fight a “War on Poverty” is to be a nation that promotes itself, its industries and its economic freedom. More government programs are not the answer, they are the problem. Denmark, did a study on unemployment program which allowed the unemployed to stay on it for a maximum of 4 years. They found many people remained on unemployment for 46 months. Once they reduced it to 2 years many found employment in 22 months. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/why-denmark-is-shrinking-its-social-safety-net/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

    You can continue to create more programs and you will continue to increase the participants in said program. “We could have had free medical care, and free college education for all. We would be the smartest, healthiest, richest nation on Earth and have colonies on Mar and the Moon.” We all would love this Utopia you write about Snowman, but the problem is that all of those folks educated, and cared for are going to have to work. When our workforce participation rate hovers around 61% we are going to find it more and more difficult to right the ship. Much of the problem today is the Obama Administrations unwillingness to admit being wrong and tweak its course.

    Just because one is a Republican or conservative, does not mean we don’t care about the water, the air, women’s rights, gay rights, old people, children or the poor. I grew up poor and understand what it is to not have necessities. But there has to be a balance, there has to be personal responsibility, accountability and as it stands now I see neither in all of these government programs. A prime example is the endless list of bonds that we get in each voting cycle. Once again we are voting for clean water… do we have an accounting of the last bond issue that dealt with this. Or the ever present “this bond will be to create jobs..” Is there ever a follow-up to give examples of jobs created? No it is just more spending and for that reason I cannot support items for which there is no accounting or accountability.

  12. A lot of us grew up poor or very nearly poor. What mattered the most in easing these conditions was having sufficient education to land a job that offered some basic health insurance and paid a living wage.

    Amongst many “government programs” that assisted in stablizing our economic situations and improving education were/are Head Start, reduced-price or free lunches at schools, Aid to Dependent Children, SSI, the G.I. bill, “Food Stamps”, Unemployment Insurance, The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), home heating assistance, etc., etc.

    To quote LePage recently in a debate: “$100,000. (a year) isn’t a lot of money.” Oh, yeah? Tell that to a family struggling to feed, clothe, keep a roof over their heads.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.